tonight on american history tv we mark the 40th anniversary of the church committee's final report, with extended segments of the t hearings investigating cia, fbi, irs, and nsa intelligence activities. the committee published a total of 14 volumes of reports detailing numerous intelligence excesses at home and abroad. >> american history tv on c-span3, saturday night at 10:00 eastern on real america. >> more than 110,000 cubans flee cuba.

they come to 140 clotters from the port of mario to key west, florida in nearly 2,000 boats. why do they come? why are there so many? >> during the spring through fall of 1980, approximately 125,000 cuban refugees arrived in florida from the port of mariel, cuba. hear interviews from the new arrivals to america and find out why they left, sunday morning at 10:00 on road to the white house rewind. the 1992 democratic and republican conventions. bill clinton accepts his party's presidential nomination in new york city. >> in the name of the hardworking americans who make up our forgotten middle class, i proudly accept your nomination for president of the united states. >> and incumbent president george h.w. bush accepts his parties a nomination in houston. >> and i proud to receive and

i'm honored to accept your nomination for president of the united states. >> at 4:45, architectural historian barry lewis on the evolution and creation of new york city's greenwich village. >> when the l opened on sixth avenue, it gave us what we already understood. east of sixth was washington square. west of sixth avenue was the lower west side. nobody ever crossed that line. now the people from west of sixth avenue might cross the line to work as a servant in washington square. but believe me, the people in washington square went on the other side of west avenue. >> every time i look at washington, it's unanimous. unanimously commander in chief. unanimously president of the constitutional. unanimously president of the united states. unanimously reelect president of the united states. unanimously appointed as the lieutenant general and commander of all the armys to be raised.

what a record. >> george washington scholar peter enriquez explores that even know washington was officially retired, he continued to meet with political figures from the new capital, and was often called upon to craft policy. for the complete american history tv weekend schedule, go to c-span.org. welcome to real america c-span three's american tv. 40 years ago the united states senate created a special committee to look into the activities of u.s. intelligence services. the committee had a long official title. >> wiz the senate select committee to study governmental operations with respect to intelligence activities, and it quickly took on the nickname of its chairman, frank church. and it was best known to history as the church committee. the committee met for 16 months. it reviewed more than 10,000 documents. it called 800 witnesses before the committee and its staff. its legacy includes the creation

of the senate permanent select intelligence committee, providing ongoing oversight of the intelligence agencies. and the creation of the foreign intelligence surveillance act of 1978, which we know as fisa. two former staffers of the church committee are with us and will be with us to help provide some historical context and understand the significance of the 40-year-old video that you are about to see. from new york city, frederick "fritz" schwarz who was the chief council is with us. here in our studio in washington, d.c. is elliot maxwell, who was a council to the committee as pennsylvania republican senator richard schweiker's designee. thank you to both of you for joining us. >> thank you. >> let's start with the basics, mr. maxwell. would you explain really how the church committee got constituted? what was the impetus? >> i guess my view is that most of it came about because of a

series of articles about activities by the intelligence community in the united states written by cy hirsh and followed up by many other people was in the context of the post watergate hearing, resignation of president nixon. i still continuing concern about the vietnam war, and the thought that the intelligence agencies were being being directed against u.s. citizens led to some public concern and a response from both the senate and the house to establish special committees to look at the intelligence activities overall. it was in that context that i think you need to place the activities of the committee and the response to things that happened during the vietnam war, the civil rights movement, and other political activities led to the creation of these two committees. >> mr. schwarz, what was the

committee's mandate or mission as it was constituted? >> well, it was to look into the facts and develop the facts and expose them to the american public. you know, you mentioned this was in the aftermath of watergate. some people thought maybe we would just expose more bad things about the nixon administration. but our single most important finding was to say that every one of six presidents starting with franklin roosevelt and running through nixon, four democrats and two republicans, every one of them had abused their secret powers. and by making that broad finding, which i think was our most important, it helped with the internal cohesion of the committee, and it helped with its national reputation. >> how were frank church and john tower selected as the chairman and republican vice

chair of the committee? >> mansfield selected frank church. the story is that he had asked phil hart to do it. but phil hart was will and died of cancer not too long afterwards, although he served on the committee. and the minority leader scott selected tower. interestingly, of the 11, none of them had been people who were responsible for the prior generation of inadequate oversight by the congress of the cia and the fbi and the other intelligence agencies. so you had a group of 11 people who came at this without any bias from having had supposed responsibility earlier and having failed as the congress did to exercise really any oversight of the intelligence community before we did our work. >> mr. maxwell, i want to read

for our audience the name of the 11 committee members. because these are some very famous well-known names from the days of the towering names in the united states senate. they will be recognized. besides frank church and john tower, phil hart of michigan, walter mondale, ultimately vice president of the united states. walter huddleston of kentucky. robert morgan of north carolina, and gary hart, presidential aspirant himself of colorado. and on the republican side howard baker who went on to be the majority leader. barry goldwater, presidential candidate. charles mathias of maryland, and dick schweiker whom you worked for of pennsylvania. so how did these 11 big figures get chosen by their respective leaders? what was the thinking in constituting these particular individuals? what would they expect the outcome to be with these people on the panel? >> well, i wasn't privy to those discussions. but my sense is that they chose people who had stature within the institution and within the nation.

so that this would be considered a product of the senate and have the associated stature of the members. for me, it was really extraordinary in the sense that it represented a very broad spectrum of views from the most conservative to the most liberal in the senate at the time. and i think the task of the chair and the vice chair was to make sure that they could move together. and what fritz said earlier about the desire to make this a unified finding about these activities probably drove the leadership in both the choice of the chair and the choice of the members. >> mr. schwarz, our program in american history tv is all going to center around video, of course, as it must.

but i wanted to talk to you about the television aspect of these hearings. mention at the outset that the subcommittee and full committees met for 16 months. and over the course of time, according to senate documents, they had 126 full committee hearings and 40 subcommittee hearings. but only a portion of those were before television cameras. what was the strategy regarding television of the hearings? >> well, the first choice we made, well, obviously, the committee's own discussions, at least at the start were going to be confidential. but the first choice we made was when we investigated the plots to assassina foreign leaders like fidel castro and other people, there was a discussion about whether those hearings should be public or not. and actually, howard baker, who was a very effective member of the committee pushed for public hearings. and frank church said no i

think we're wiser not to have public hearings. this will be our first hearings. and you don't want to inadvertently put out stuff that should be kept confential. we should put it all out in our report on assassinations, which we did, which was the most exhaustive coverage of covert action there has ever been in this country or anywhere else. then when we got to the domestic hearings, those were all public. the fbi was by far the most important of our domestic hearing. and i frankly think overall our most important work was exposing the illegal and improper conduct that the fbi under j. edgar hoover had engaged in for decades. those were all public. the public, and of course, our reports were public.

and the -- in the domestic report, which was called book 2, everything we wanted to put out was put out. in the foreign report, there were some things which were not included in the final report, but were available to all 100 senators. but in general, we had by far the most disclosure of any committee that there has ever been dealing with intelligence, either in this country, and that's still true to date, or in the rest of the world. >> as a side note on television and the decision, senator baker, when he became the majority leader in 1981 after the election of ronald reagan, the first measure he put into the senate was television of the senate. so he is consistent, yes, on his interest in having proceedings televised. let me ask you, mr. maxwell, because we're to be start showing video. we live in an age of c-span. but this was prior to that.

and the decision for committee hearings to be on network television was a big deal. what was the sense of the country and the news reporting and the interest level about all of these hearing as a they were happening? >> i think there was a considerable amount of interest because the subject matter was themselves. the relationship between the citizens and the intelligence community. and little was known about it when we began the meetings of the committee, at least on the foreign intelligence side, nobody knew what to request. nobody knew what was there. nobody knew how to ask the right questions. and so when the hearings took place, it was in the context of this was -- this was new. this was new to the public. what these agencies were doing, how they were doing them, what the impact was on themselves and on their friends or their neighbors or their -- people in the rest of the world. this was the first time that the curtain had been drawn at all

about these agencies. and so i think it was -- inherently interesting for the public. >> in today's installment of our series on the church committee, we're going to focus on the committee's investigation of something that was called the huston plan. we're going to begin by showing you a clip from the hearing. of fredrick schwarz questioning witness tom charles hust in 1975 in the senate caucus room. let's watch. >> you did recommend, did you not, that the united states should commence in your view commence as you understood it commence, or recommence the illegal opening of mail. that correct? >> yes. my understanding from my contacts with the bureau and through the working committee was that in the past that this had been a technique that had been employed, particularly in matters relating to espionage,

and that the professional intelligence communicated that they thought it was a necessary technique to be undertaken under extreme circumstances. and that they felt that they should be authorized to do so. >> and similarly, you also based on your views on the recommendations of the entire intelligence community except for mr. hoover's footnotes advocated that the united states should commence or recommence to commit burglaries to acquire valuable intelligence information. is that right? >> yes. i was told that the bureau had undertaken black bag jobs for a number of years up until 1966 that had been successful and valuable, again, particularly in matters involving espionage. and that they felt this, again, was something that given the revolutionary climate, they thought they needed to have the authority to do. >> and there you see fritz schwarz at work, questioning tom

huston in 1975. so mr. schwarz, who was tom huston, and what was the huston plan? >> well, the huston plan was something that was devised in the white house. and with the most of the intelligence community to get presidential blessing for the illegal things that had been done for years and years and years. it eventually fizzled out. but the intent was to legalize what had been done and which was illegal. huston gave us an absolutely fantastic quote. and i assume somewhat later in that examination of him i used it. but he said "when you start these programs, you always have mission creep. and his language was you go from the kid with the bomb to the kid with the picket sign to the kid

with the bumper sticker of the opposing candidate. and you go from looking at dangerous activity to migrating to looking at the political views of people in this country, of americans. and nsa did the same thing. they got every single telegram that left the country for 30 years was given to nsa. at the beginning, their objective was only to look at encrypted cables from foreign embassies back to, like, from the russian embassy back to moscow. but then there was mission creep, the very thing that huston admitted to me in that colorful language. there was mission creep so they started looking at the cables of anti-vietnam war protesters in the united states and of civil rights leaders in the united states. something which the government

had absolutely no business looking at, and certainly not looking at in an illegal way. >> elliot maxwell, telegrams are an ancient thing for many of our younger viewers. so can you put into context what it would mean today to read every single telegram that is leaving the united states? >> well, it's easy enough to do that given what's happened over the last two or three years after edward snowden's revelations, because the intelligence community access to the metadata about telephone calls and the like so that it would tell who was communicating with whom. that's extraordinary thing to have if you want to be able to look at the activities of people. and it was the same kind of notion that fritz was talking about. people thought, well, if i scoop up enough of this material, then somewhere i'm going to find important things. and having all the material is really tempting.

to go beyond what the original thought was. and so it's not -- it's not the kind of technology that is employed. it's the notion that you can sweep everything in and then work from that. >> in a little while, we are going to see 40 minutes of charles huston testifying about the huston plan. but first we would like to show another short clip. this is arizona republican senator barry goldwater. and he is talking about the internal revenue service in this clip. let's watch. >> senator goldwater? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to speak first about the internal revenue service. and i'm very happy that the chairman has mentioned this subject. somebody on this committee has likened the cia to a bull elephant rung rampant. i liken the irs to a rattlesnake, sliding along in the glass.

probably the greatest threat to american freedom and of anything we have. and yet this morning is the first public indication i've heard that the internal revenue service is going to be investigated. and i think it's time. >> you sat on the republican side, mr. maxwell. what was the intent in bringing the irs into the investigation? >> well, i think that the republican siden compassed the entire range of the political spectrum of the republican party, from matt mathias and dick schweiker to barry goldwater and john tower. the concerns differed somewhat. for barry goldwater, the irs was just that, a snake. and he wanted to make sure that that was part of the investigation and not shunted aside. that was not necessarily the case or the priorities for some of the other senators on the republican side. >> we have really just a few minutes until we begin showing

40 full minutes of your questioning fritz schwarz of tom charles huston. i'd like to kind of have you go back to that moment in time and think about its significance, and particularly its significance for people watching today. so what is it you would like people to think about in terms of constitutional questions or americans' relationships with their government as they're listening to this testimony? >> well, i think the american public should be bothered any time that the government exceeds its power and does so secretly without even the congress knowing what it's doing. and so the american citizen should be free of fear that their government is doing things to harm them, to collect excessive information. now we never on the church committee said the government

shouldn't collect any information. it was that the government shouldn't collect information without going through a proper process to develop the right, for example, or a judge saying this is legitimate, to do so. the irs just to go back to it was legitimate subject of inquiry. and i thought we brought out some very disturbing facts. and again, this showed the nonpartisan side of the committee. for example, we showed that john kennedy, as president, had done things to try and get the irs to go after particular people. and we had a quite cooperative witness who was the head of the irs. and we brought out a lot of information. senator goldwater was good on that issue. he was not someone as interested in the rest of our work.

in fact, i think he was less interested than all the other senators who were profoundly interested. and senator cold water first urged that we should not investigate the fbi's treatment of martin luther king because he said if we do that, quote, they will riot. and then after we discovered that the fbi had tried to get martin luther king to commit suicide by sending him a composite tape of recordings taken of king in various hotel rooms, i said to the committee, i'd not looked at the tape and nor had i had let anybody on the staff looked at the tape because to do so wasn't necessary to make our point. and then senator goldwater in something that i thought was very, very disappointing said i think fritz is wrong. we should get that tape and play it on national television.

so i'm making those comments a little bit in criticism of senator goldwater. all the other ten senators i thought constantly worked very hard and were very interested in all our issues. and there really -- there never was a purely partisan vote. and in general, there was great cooperation. i regarded myself as chief council for the whole committee, and not chief council for the democrats. i felt i was chief council for the whole committee. and talking about elliot's senator, senator schweiker, senator schweiker i think had the best record of any senator of always wanting to do what we thought was the most appropriate thing to do. >> well, thank you for that background and introduction. among the committees in a partisan washington today, the

senate intelligence committee still has a reputation for acting most often in bipartisan nature. so it's something that has been a historical context for the committee. so at this point, thanks to both of you for setting the stage for the huston part of the investigation. and we're going to now show 40 minutes as the church committee investigates the huston plan. and this was televised september 23rd, 1975 by the public broadcasting service, pbs. let's watch. >> did you submit to the president certain recommendations with respect to the restraints on intelligence collection? >> yes. >> and have you got in front of you the document which is a tab a-2 of our books? >> yes. >> and is that the document which you did submit to the president? >> which i submitted to mr. haldeman. >> you submitted to mr. haldeman for transmission to the president. in that document you make certain recommendations with

respect to changing restraints which you thought had been placed upon intelligence collection. is that right? >> yes. >> in making those recommendations, did you believe you were representing the consensus of the entire working group that had worked on the study for yourself and for the president? >> yes. >> so that whatever recommendations you made with respect to illegal opening of the mail, or burglary or surreptitious, with the exception of the footnotes of mr. hoover himself, is that right? >> yes. >> you did recommend, did you not, that the united states should commence, in your view commence as you understood it

commence or recommence the illegal opening of mail. that correct? >> yes. my understanding from my contacts with the bureau and through the working committee was that in the past that this had been a technique that had been employed, particularly in matters relating to espionage. that the professional intelligence communicated that they thought it was a necessary technique to be undertaken under extreme circumstances, and that they felt that they should be authorized to do so. >> and similarly, you also, basing your views on the recommendations of the entire intelligence community except for mr. hoover's footnotes advocated that the united states should commence or recommence to commit burglaries to acquire valuable intelligence information. is that right? >> yes. i was told that the bureau had

undertaken black bag jobs for a number of years up until 1966 that had been successful and valuable, again, particularly in matters involving espionage. and that they felt this, again, was something that given the revolutionary climate they thought they needed to have the authority to do. >> and in both cases, your position and their position was in effect that the end justifies the means? >> no. i'm not going to speak for what their position was. but i don't think that fairly summarizes what my position was. >> all right. i'm sure some of the other members -- some of the other persons here are going to question you on that issue. did president nixon threw mr. haldeman approve the recommendations for change which you had made on behalf of the entire intelligence community? >> yes. >> what happened after that? >> the question then arose as to how the decisions were to be implemented. i had recommended to mr. haldeman that i felt that the

president ought to call the directors back into his office and inform them personally of his decisions. it seemed to me that that was the proper course to take, particularly in view of the sensitivity of the decisions relative to mr. hoover. however, the president, mr. haldeman, didn't think that that was necessary. so then the question became how should a decision memorandum go out. mr. haldeman seemed to think that it was not necessary for either he or the president to do that. and so i was nominated. >> and you sent it out? >> yes, i did. over my signature. >> this document represented your proposals to the president. for lifting or relaxing certain restraints on the intelligence community with respect gathering

information on what you called the revolutionary climate. i suppose that had reference to the anti-war demonstrations and anti-war protests groups. >> senator, i really was peripherally interested in the anti-war demonstrations. what i was concerned about was the 40,000 bombings that took place in one year. what i was concerned about is the 39 police officers who were killed in sniping incidents. >> yes. and everything connected with that -- >> that's what i'm talking about. revolutionary violence as opposed to anti-war demonstrations. >> whatever your purpose, the document you sent to the president contained your recommendations for lifting or relaxing certain restraints. >> or keeping restraints as in the case of the military. arrange in some cases, keeping restraints. >> yes.

>> now, was it your understanding when you submitted that document to the president that his authority was being requested for lifting or relaxing restraints if he chose to accept your recommendation? >> yes. >> now turning to the question of mail coverage, on page two of your recommendations, i read "recommendation, restrictions on legal coverage should be removed." and i take by "legal coverage" you had reference to the procedure that enables intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies to look at the envelopes if the procedure is followed, there is a legal way for doing that. >> yes, yes, sir. >> then you recommended also, present restrictions on covert coverage should be relaxed on selected targets of priority,

foreign intelligence and internal security interests. now here you were referring to opening the mail, were you not? >> yes. >> and that was against the law, was it not? >> yes. >> so you were making a very serious recommendation to mr. nixon. you were recommending that he authorize mail openings even though such openings were a violation of the law? >> well, i -- i think what we were -- what was being recommended was they be employed in spite of the fact that there was a federal law that prohibited. but as in the relationship to both mail and to surpt tisha entry, there was whether the fourth amendment applied to the president in the exercise of his

internal security. that's when you asked me about our thinking. thing is where the question arose. in my mind, what we were talking about is something i had been told had been done for 25 years, that had been done with the knowledge of the professional intelligence community, the people who had been here long before we got in town and will be here long after we left town. the question really was the question of whether inherent in the executive power in matters involving internal security or the security of the state, the president could act contrary to the dictates of a statute. and i think that was the kind of dilemma. >> you were recommending, you were recommending that the president in this case authorize mail openings even though such action was contrary to the federal statute? >> yes, sir. >> and you have suggested that there might be some inherent right that circumvents the fourth amendment to the

constitution of the united states guaranteeing citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures without a warrant, bearing upon the national security responsibilities of the president. >> senator, i think this really goes to heart of the matter, as you well know. and if you recall in the safe streets act, there was a proviso klaus in there that said to the effect that nothing in this act is to be deemed to limit whatever the power the president may have with respect to national security matters. i think it was that kind of approach to the whole area of fourth amendment rights as they involve in terms of national security and in terms of security that opened the door to men who in good conscience thought they could go ahead and do it. >> now, you yourself have suggested this was a very serious question. >> yes, sir. >> and you were asking the president to take action that violated a federal statute upon the theory that he had some

inherent right to do this. now since that is such a central question, since it does go to the protection offered american citizens for the fourth amendment of the constitution, did you take the matter up with the attorney general of the united states to secure his opinion? >> no. >> no? >> no. >> when you testified, earlier, in executive session, you were asked the following question. you were not aware of the fact, i take it, that at this time, the time you were submitting your recommendations to the president the cia was opening mail. mr. huston, you reply, "no, in

fact i think one of the more interesting things in this whole thing is why i didn't know half the things i didn't know when the president of the united states sat across the table from the directors of the intelligence agencies and said i want a complete report on what's going on." "i didn't know about the cia mail openings. i didn't know about the program. these people were conducting all of these things on their own that the president of the united states didn't know about." do you still stand by that testimony? >> with the exception that i -- i guess i can't be positive the president didn't know if he learned from other sources. but i can say i certainly didn't know about it. and it was my responsibility to see that the president knew what was going on. >> and to your knowledge he did not know? >> to my knowledge, he did not know. >> and it would have been a very curious exercise for him,

wouldn't it, to look at your recommendations asking for his authority to open the mail if he already knew that the practice had been going on. for a long time, before his authority was asked. >> yes, yes. >> and he never raised that with you? >> no. >> and five days later upon reconsideration, when he pulled back this report, or this directive, did he do that for the purpose of revoking the authority that he had given? >> yes. because mr. hoover and attorney general mitchell had prevailed upon him to change his decision, which he did. and there was certainly no doubt in my mind, nor do i think could there conceivably have been doubt in the mind of any other people involved the recall of the decision memorandum meant

the reversal of the president's position. >> to the president revoked the authority he had given. >> yes. >> for such things as mail openings. >> yes. >> and yet are you aware that the mail openings continued for a long time after that revocation? >> well, i read the rockefeller commission report, yes. >> senator, of course is that i kind of sat him down here and created out of whole cloth the entire array to exploit and the civil liberties of the american people and i forced it down dick helms' throat and i used my heavyweight on all these poor little professional intelligence

people and forced them into coming up with all this. now i think the fact of the matter is that the entire intelligence community to summer of 1970 thought we had a serious crisis in this country. i thought we had a serious crisis in this country. my attitude was that we've got to do something about it. who knows what to do about it? professional intelligence community. the professional intelligence community tells me this is what you give us these tools, we can solve the problem. i recommended those tools. the thing that is interesting to me about the fact that i didn't know about the mail openings, i didn't know about the co-intel program, if i had known, many of the tools we're asking permission to be used were already being used and we still weren't get anything results, it conceivably would have changed our entire attitude towards the confidence we were willing to place in the hands of the intelligence community in dealing with this problem. so i don't -- >> since i've been out in front,

as you know, senator, since the first time we talked back in may in the armed service committee, i've been out front of this thing. the huston plan. i never wrote this report, that everyone calls the huston plan. i didn't write that report. but all i want in the record is i thought we had a serious problem. i wasn't concerned about people who didn't like the war. i wasn't concerned about people who thought nixon was a louse. we were talking about bombers. we were talking about assassins. we were talking about snipers. and i felt something had to be done. these people said here are the tools we need. i take full responsibility. i recommended it. >> so what you're saying really is the inspiration for the report and most of its aspects in the absence of anything but the skantiest of guidelines actually dpram the agencies

involved. >> i never saw it says you can have free lunch in the white house mess. and yet it's in here as a recommendation. >> what was your attitude towards the president's decision to -- or the reversal of his decision that resulted in rejection of the plan? >> well, i thought it was a mistake for several reasons. the first reason i thought it was a mistake it is put us back to ground zero, which was not merely back to ground zero in terms of operational techniques, but back to ground zero in terms of lack of any coordination in terms of any intelligence agencies. secondly, i felt in my own mind that mr. hoover's objections were not based on -- i don't want to phrase that. i thought not all of mr. hoover's suggestions had been meritoriously submitted to the president as what he was really concerned about. and thirdly, frankly, i was concerned about what the effect this would have on the

intelligence community other than the fbi if they could put their back into this project, which was supposed to have been a joint effort. they all reached a consensus, and then one person, the director of the fbi could succeed in reversing it. >> so while you did not prepare this plan, you were in fact its advocate? >> yes, sir. >> what legal justification or other justification do you have as an attorney and an officer of the court and as a public officer sworn to uphold the constitution and the laws of the land to entertain and recommend illegal acts by the government? >> well, as i said, senator, my -- it was my opinion at the time that simply the fourth amendment didn't apply to the president in the exercise of matters relating to the internal security or national security. it was an argument that mr. justice douglas, for example, anticipated in the united states

district court case that ruled unconstitutional the domestic wiretaps. because up until 1972, every president and with a possible exception of attorney general clark, every attorney general argued that the president had inherent authority under executive power to engage in warnless wiretaps. and although the court in criminal matters had clearly held at this a warrantless wiretap upsold the fourth amendment. they even took to it the supreme court because they felt there was inherent power. you and i both know as lawyers if there is it is a trace pass the common law, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to extend that from the trace pass via the telephone to trespass via the surreptitious mail openings.

a dangerous road we were hustling down. >> if that's your just indication, why did you call it illegal? what you're suggesting it is legal for the president to violate rights, constitutional legal rights of citizens if he is the president if he invokes national security as a justification. but you didn't say that in your memo. you said these things are illegal. now which it is? >> well, i think for the purposes it seemed to me most relevant at the time, that is that the operative action, the operation is going to be undertaken by an individual who if he is caught is going to go to jail, he is clearly illegal. >> and so that it would be fair to say you understood and told the president it was illegal. but to justify it now, you invoke a national security defense, which would make it legal. which position it is? >> senator, i'm not invoking any defense now because you asked me what my opinion was at the time. not what my opinion is now.

>> all right. >> but what i'm saying to you is that the consideration that was given by not only me, but by the other people who signed this report and discussed these things was that frankly it was within the power of the president to do it. >> all right. why didn't you say that within your memo? that this would appear to be illegal, but in fact it's legal because as president, you have powers not mentioned in the constitution, but powers which in our judgment we feel every president possesses, which are such that the law doesn't apply to you. and the constitution rights the it doesn't apply where the president decides that the national security dictates a course. why didn't you say that? instead you said it was illegal. >> i said that because that's what the report had said. >> all right. now, you recall at the time you were discussing these various options to be recommended to the

president what the position was of the principles representing the various agencies. you had a representative from the nsa, one from the cia, one from the dia, and one from the fbi. which of them objected during the course of making up these options to these recommendations which involved illegal acts. >> at the working group level, i don't recall any objection. >> do you recall any of them ever saying we can't do this because it's illegal? >> no. >> can you recall any discussion whatsoever concerning illegality of these recommendations? >> no. >> does that strike you as peculiar that top public officers in the most high level and sensitive positions of government would discuss, recommending to the president actions which are clearly

illegal and possibly unconstitutional without ever asking themselves whether that was the proper thing for them to be doing? >> yes. i think it is, except for the fact for many of those people they were talking about something they had been aware of that had been undertaken for a long period of time. is that an adequate justification? >> senator, i'm not trying to justify. i'm trying to tell what my impression is of what happened at the time. >> because if criminals could be excused on the grounds that someone had done it before, there wouldn't be much population in any of the prisons today, would there? >> no. >> what other things were being done as you later discovered by the intelligence community that may or may not have been recommended in your report, similar matters? >> i think there were several things that were critically important that we should have known about but we didn't that could have easily influenced our judgment. one is the co-intel program, which question we didn't know about.

operation chaos or whatever it was that the cia had its own private operation going that we didn't know about. >> can you tell us, or is there any reason why the witness should not tell us what co-intel and chaos were, the nature of the programs? >> no there is no reason. the justice department has now made disclosures on co-intel. and i think the rockefeller report has set out operation chaos. >> briefly for this record, mr. huston, what were co-intel and chaos? >> as i understand it, the co-intel program was essentially designed to sow discord. i don't know what the correct technical term was, but it was an offensive program against designated targets by the fbi in terms of -- >> give us an example. >> well, for example, that professor jones is a member of the socialist workers party, and he is running for the school board. and so friendly neighborhood fbi agent sends a letter to the newspaper saying you may not

know this, but this bird that is running for the school board is a member of the socialist workers party. >> the co-intel program you did not know about the time of the filing of the huston report. >> no. >> and you later learned of it? >> yes. >> how did you later learn of it? >> well, when the justice department released. >> do you know whether or not the president of the united states knew of the co-intel program? >> i don't believe. so all the information that has been made public indicates no one outside the bureau was to know about it, including anyone in the justice department. >> including the attorney general? >> yes, including the attorney general. >> what was the other operation? >> the operation chaos, and that is that the apparently the cia had a group set up that was concerned directly with matters affecting domestic intelligence collection, or events that were occurring within the continental united states. i didn't -- we didn't know about that. in fact, the impression that we had all along was that the cia

had very little interest in or coverage of areas which we thought were important which was what happened abroad when these people who were under surveillance by the fbi left the country. average would be. >> i'm told i only have one minute left, mr. houston. let me ask you this. do you have any idea, you can tell me quickly who authorized? was it a presidential authorization? >> i don't think so. i don't think any president knew about it. and i think both of those programs went -- were originated before this administration. i think co-an tell went back into the johnson administration and operation chaos -- >> not trying to establish blame, even responsibility. i'm just trying to establish in my own mind's eye whether in these projects the agencies were self-starters or whether someone up the scale may have authorized it. >> doni don't know except that y were originated in a prior

administration and my understanding is that president johnson didn't know about it and i don't believe president nixon now about it. >> senator goldwater. >> thank you mrsh, mr. chairman. i have a watch in front of me and i will confine myself to ten minutes. some of the interrogations have run 15. but i don't have more than 10 minutes' worth. i want to speak first about the internal revenue service, and i'm very happy that the chairman has mentioned this subject. somebody on this committee has likened the cia to a bull elephant running rampant. i liken the irs to a rattlesnake sliding along in the grass probably the greatest threat to american freedom and americans of anything we he have and yet this morning is the first public indication i've heard that the internal revenue service is going to be investigated, and i think it's time. i notice a report or a letter

written by you on september 21st in which you said nearly 18 months ago the president indicated a desire for irs to move against leftist organizations taking advantage of tax shelters. i have been pressing irs since that time to no avail. in other words, the irs will protect any organization in this country they feel like protecting and close down on any organization that they feel like protecting. and i think it's high time that this committee or some other committee expose just what we're up against in this country because the power to tax is the power to destroy. now, mr. huston, vufr been a member of the cia? >> no, sirs. >> fbi? >> no, sirs. >> dia? >> yes i was assigned to the dia when i was an army intelligence officer. >> were you hired by the white house as a speech writer at one time? >> yes, sir. >> and it was from that that you

went into the so-called huston plan? >> yes, sir. >> was the had huston plan ever used? >> no, sir. >> ever put into effect? >> no. >> what do you think about the huston plan as you sit here today? >> well, senator, i think that the -- i still believe that there is a threat that may be characterized and defined as an internal security threat. i think there are people that want to destroy this country. i think there are people who are willing to go to great ledgeths to do it. i thit two attempts upon the life of the president are symptomatic of that. and so i think there's a necessary place in our society for an effective domestic intelligence collection effort and more importantly than collection for professional analysis of that information. i think that it's perhaps easy to justify the emphasis we

attached in 1970, but i think it's just as easy to discount it. i was -- we were sitting in the white house getting reports day in and day out of what was happening in this country in terms of the violence, the numbers of bombings, the assassination attempts, the sniping incidents. 40,000 bombings, for example, in a period, rotc facilities in the month of may in a two-weekor period we were averaging six afrsens a day against rotc facilities. what happened then i think is at least from my perspective that we were convinced ourselves that this was something that was just going to continue to get worse until we reached the point where all the people who were predicting police state repression were going to get what -- it was going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy because that was the only way it was going to be handled, as i suspect it had been true in the chicago black panther raid and

the los angeles black panther shootout. so my view was that we to dao something to stop it. mr. white would say this authorized an extension into every person's mailbox. aside -- theoretically that may be true, although i don't think that the term that's we used in terms of highly selective targets or top priority target was a bit looser than the terms that attorney general clark used when he got authorization from president roosevelt and when president truman authorized electronic surveillance. but the fact of the matter is that we were motivated, unjustly perhaps or unreasonably or unconscionably, by a legitimate concern that was reited to the lives and the property of people that were subject to random acts of violence. my view was that i had confidence in the professional intelligence community. these were the professionals. these are the people who had been authorized to solve these problems. what i didn't realize then is that these kinds of programs,

although theoretically and conceptually can be narrowly used in the best interest of the country by responsible people, can lead to the type of thing that happened with the plummers and with the watergate. now, everybody tries to link the huston plan as the precursor of the plumbers and the watergate. in my mind, it's totally untrue. but it's obvious to me that this kind of thing lend it'sself too easily to the type of corruption that we've seen. and therefore i've come to the conclusion that whereas i would traditionally have taken the position that i'm willing to run some small risk of infringing upon some small portion of the public's otherwise legitimate rights for the greater good of the security of all the people, i now have come to the conclusion that we have no practical alternative but to take a far greater risk that there are going to be these

kinds of things that we can't deal effectively against until such time as perhaps our recourse is sem apply to the ongoing criminal process. so i -- but i don't want to leave the impression that i think there's no problem because i think that we need to deal with this thing in such a way as to maximize the respect for the right chz ts of the sit zeps at same time not destroying the containment of the people act gt through their government acting to protect themselves through those who would destroy this country. >> i thank you, mr. hughes huston, wore that statement. i agree with that statement 100%. i have no other questions. i'll gist comment that as long as we have daniel ellsbergs, some newspapers, journalists, media people, organizations intent on changing the basic philosophy of this country by the same kind of subversion that

you are now being at least charged with part way, i think we have to be forever on our toes. and i think you've expressed your purpose well. every time i pick up a morning paper or an evening paper ayinde see the disclosure of secrets that i thought were locked up in my brain or my heart or my safe, i get worried about my country. and i hope that this committee through the continued diligence of its chairman and staff members will disclose everything wrong with this country. that's all i have. >> thank you, senator goldwater. >> you've indicated that after the fact you found out that many of the agencies that were on that interagency task force were using tools that they were

sitting there discussing white house approval for obtaining. why do you think they were going through this charade? >> i wish i knew. i don't know. i think that -- i think part of the problem was that if the other agencies knew that they with were doing it, there would have been all sorts of problems because, for example, the fbi greatly resented president johnson ordering the military intelligence into the domestic collection area in 1967 because that was their charter. but the president directly ordered it and they had to live with it, although they certainly were anxious and happy that the urban committee hearings blew that out of the water and got those people out of the business. i think for example the fbi and mr. hoover would have had an absolute stroke if he had known that the cia had an operation chaos operative going on. so i think that the last thing the world the cia would have done is disclose to the bureau that they were working on their turf. so i think interagency

jealousies and rivalries had part to do with it. i think the second thing is if you've got a program going and you're perfectly happy with its results why take the risk that it might be turned off if the president of the united states decides he doesn't want to do it? because they had no way of knowing in advance what decision the president might make. so why should the cia run the risk that the president may say hell no, i don't want you guys opening any mail? then if they had admitted it, they would have had to close the thing down. the cohen tell program, apparently even the justice department didn't know about that. if they had told me it was obvious that the word would have been out. so it seems to me that many of these agencies just kind of operated in their own world and had their own programs going. they didn't want anyone else to know it and the thing that intrigues me is that i always was under the illusion that the purpose of intelligence was to provide policy makers with information upon which to make policies. but if the policy maker doesn't even know if those sources of information are available i don't know what in the world

good it does anybody except for the people operating it for their own gratification. >> which grings you us back to senator mondale's question, how can a president feel that the law is being obeyed and presidential policy is being adhered to? doesn't that bring us then full seshg circle back to the constitution and to the assurance, to the extent that we can be sure of any human undertaking, that the constitution is understood, that loyalty to the constitution is being given by every public servant? >> yes, i think it comes back to an assumption by all officers of what an agreement among all people in government is exactly what the limits and responsibilities and obligations of the constitution are. but i think that the problem that we've had and it's not just in this area, senator. i think it's in many areas.

that over the past 30 years you've had an little steps of increased claims of executive power and pretty soon after a 30 year period all of a sudden you woke up one morning and here was creature that had been created that no one had contemplated. each of these step iz think were innocent and honest steps. i think most of these -- it's my belief that these people in the intelligence community were honest people, dedicated people wanting to do what an honest job for what they thought was best for the country. and i don't think that they were out to destroy the liberties of the american people for any perverse political purpose. but what happened in my judgment in this area where i got sucked in, when i should have known better and where many other more tell gentle sophisticated got sucked in in other areas was the whole concept of some inherent executive power that really extends beyond anything

contemplated by those who made the incremental claims as we bent through the years. and i think that position has been reached and now there's some hard looks at this and some flocks and perhaps we're he even swinging in my judgment a little bit too much the other way. but i think that's healthy and i think that we're on the right track. >> kate scott associate historian of the you u.s. senate you've just been watching tom charles huston at the end of his testimony there, the portion we're showing. what's your reaction to that? >> well, it's just a terrific example of this ongoing debate that we've had in this country, that animated the constitutional convention where the constitution was originally created. this need to carefully balance powers within the federal government and huston is i think really getting to the kernel of the matter here which is that congress is investigating these intelligence abuses in 1975 in

part because it hadn't consistently provided oversight over the intelligence community for 30 years and huston is -- tom huston is suggesting that the executive branch with the ak essence of congress had accumulated vast powers during the period we call the cold war and now congress is ready to reassert its authority. he's saying look there's a tug of hour here. the executive blanch has a lot of you power. now congress wants to exercise more oversight over these irvs and had what we're really trying to get to is what are the constitutional principles involved? how do we protect constitutional liberties, civil liberties, constitutional rights? and still ensure some kind of national security? and i like how he summarizes that and senator mathias of maryland does such a nice job of prompting him there, to say that really congress must be involved

and they haven't been. and they need to provide oversight, but they need to do it in a careful and cautious manner. and if you compare the senate church committee investigation with the parallel investigation that was happening in the house at the same time, you see that the senate is much more careful about how it handles its materials, its sources, its classified materials. it has a whole security system in place to manage classified materials. the house doesn't manage the investigation in the same careful way and brings a lot of criticism on the process of congressional oversight in the process. so i think this -- i love this particular exchange here with tom huston because he's really getting to the meat of the matter which is, yes, we have these constitutional principles. we need to protect them. we need to ensure that we are doing -- providing intelligence in a lawful manner.

but we also need congress' help to do that. and he's also careful to say congress shouldn't go too far in exercising good oversight. >> this hearing with tom huston took place on september 23, 1975, in this room where you're sitting. could a hearing like this happen now or a committee like this exist now or have hearings changed since then? >> well, hearings have changed a great deal in part because the internet revolution and digital technologies ayou lou senate hearings to be broadcast live. most senate committee hearings today are broadcast live in the committee hearing rooms. and so it's taken some of the specialness oust process. in 1975 when the senate church committee was televised nationally, broadcast live and then sections were -- segments were rerun for the evening news, that was still a relatively you

new and novel process. this was an era before cable television. we had the big three abc nbc and cbs. and if it didn't come on the evening news, most americans didn't watch it. that's not true today when we have c-span which broadcasts senate and house proceedings live and we have the live broadcast of most senate committee hearing. i think today if you tried to organize a committee hearing like this one a committee investigation like this one you may not be -- the members sitting here behind the dais might not be speaking to a packed audience because the journalists would be able to watch from the comfort of their own desks but sitting in front of their laptops the live broadcast. and in that case, it takes some of the specialness out of the process. it's harder to get a large audience for committee hearings

these days. >> you're interested and enthusiastic about the church committee hearings you but why had should a general audience or why should americans care what happened in this room 40 years ago? >> i think it's important because it reminds us that the issues that we face today, the challenges we face in balancing a need to protect civil liberties with the need to protect the nations's security, is on ongoing debate. it's certainly not one that we're just engaging in for the first time. it's been ongoing for some time. and i think the crisis of the 1970s era and the senate's response to that crisis with new statutory reforms and agency internal reforms suggests that there are ways to address immediate problems in a way that makes people feel more comfortable and confident in the process and in the system going forward. i think history is best when it

reminds us that the current issues that we're grappling with today are in some ways not new. we need to look back on these periods in our past and say, okay, we've faced these problems before. we've seen these as crises in the past. how are we going to respond to them in a way today that is mindful of the progress that we made then and also maybe the limitations of that investigation 40 years ago? >> kate scott, thank you very much. >> thanks. >> american history tv in prime-time continues friday with a focus on the smithsonian's national museum of african-american history. scheduled to open this september on the national mall, the museum will showcase collections on religion, politics, culture, historic preservation, and interpretation. tune in at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span3.

welcome to real america on c-span3's american history tv. 40 years ago in the wake of watergate the united states senate created a special committee to look into the activities of the u.s. intelligence services. the committee officially known as the senate select committee to study governmental operations with rehe expect to intelligence activities is best known as the church committee after its democratic chairman frank church of idaho. the committee met for 16 months reviewing more than 10,000 documents calling 800 witnesses. its legacy includes the creation of the senate select intelligence committee providing ongoing oversight of intelligence agencies and the foreign intelligence surveillance act of 1978 better known as fisa and new requirements for the executive branch to notify congress about covert activities. two former staffers of the church committee are with us to provide context for the 40-year-old video that you are about to see. from